Leah Vincent

Being Jewish is a fundamental part of my identity, but being raised in a small midwestern city with no Orthodox community outside of a single Lubavitch family, I had very little insight into the yawning divide between me, what Leah Vincent refers to as a "Lox-and-bagels, my son the doctor, Woody Allen Jew" (except I hate Woody Allen) and Charedi (Ultra-orthodox) Jews. I kind of always assumed that Charedim were like me, just more. Yes, more synagogue, more Kosher, more Shabbat observing, but also more of the cultural tropes of American Jewry: highly educated, wealthy, liberal.

So, if you've ever actually met a Charedi Jew, you'll know that I was in for a surprise when I moved to Philadelphia for medical training and joined the pediatric hospital that provides care for the children of Lakewood, NJ. I realized that the gulf between me and the Orthodoxy wasn't a matter of degree, but was a true cultural divide. I was fascinated by the commitment to making Judaism the sole, core identity, avoiding secular books, TV and education in many cases. And I was stunned by families that avoided ever visiting their children with genetic diseases, in case the rumor got out in their community that they had a genetic disease in the family. My bosses had to explain first the entire concept of Shidduch (Jewish matchmaking) and then that the presence of a genetic disease in the family would affect Shidduch for all of the siblings, even though we knew that they weren't carriers.

What I'm saying is that I had the context to understand why Leah's family cut her off when she started to slide off the derech. Nonetheless, her tale is heart-wrenching. I would find myself getting frustrated with her decisions and then she'd slip in a note about her age. Most of the book takes place over the course of her teen years: she leaves her family home around 15 to go to England, gets sent to live independently in Israel at 16 and then is expected to be completely independent, including financially independent in NYC at 17. To the secular world that summary alone is startling.

I wish Vincent had spent more time on the relationship between her and her parents, her and Judaism, and her life prior to leaving the Charedi community. The bulk of the book is a very awkward series of, at best, semi-consensual sexual encounters written full of uncomfortable details. These depictions are sad, but ultimately (and sadly) redundant. I think most people reading this book are like me: deeply curious about Charedi life and looking for reflections from the inside. I appreciate that Vincent has instead crafted a book that is more of a memoir for her, but it feels a little like a waste to me. She has written numerous articles that are much more reflective pieces and discuss her relationship with the Charedi community now, and her relationship with Judaism. I think more of that incorporated into Cut Me Loose would have made for a more complete book.… (altro)

This was so disappointing! I love stories about people who emerge from the yoke of fundamentalism, and I love a good memoir, and this has been on my TBR since it came out. I had a number of problems with the book, but the primary problem is that it was boring. Really boring. There were many things Vincent could have explored in her complicated life story that would have been edifying and interesting. Instead she gives us an uncontextualized litany of events that make no sense.

Great memoirs tell us about the key characters. Some well-regarded examples, "The Tender Bar", The Glass Castle, and Angela’s Ashes illustrate this. We have a clear POV from the author, but we learn as much or more about the people around them, so we can understand and empathize with the ways in which everyone's actions impact everyone else. Bad memoirs focus entirely on the memoirist, making us read along as they climb so far up their own asses that we and they both pass out from lack of oxygen. As you read this ask yourself if you know anything about Vincent's parents. They may have been bad reasons, but these people had reasons for the decisions they made. The decisions are simply incomprehensible without any character development. Do we learn anything about the modern orthodox boys who begin to lead Vincent astray? About her sister who revels in the opportunity to ruin her life. About her aunt who cast her out as quickly as her parents? Are they just all psychotic? According to Vincent she did nothing but pass some non-romantic notes with a boy and buy a sweater, but we are to believe that her mother, father, sister and aunt cast her out and treat her with spite. I am not justifying their actions. There is no defensible reason to withdraw love and support from a 14 year old family member. But I am saying unless we know something about these people, there is nothing to ponder or engage with. We are left with what amounts to a series of sad diary entries.

There are a couple other things which affected my opinion of this book. Several reviewers call this pornography. I suspect they've not read pornography. For better or worse, there is nothing titillating here. There are several ill-advised and fairly clinical sexual encounters. If that makes you hot, be warned. For the rest of us, it’s just some mostly unsatisfying penetration. A second note, I have known some Hasidic women in my life, a few have been my friends, and all of them, every one, has spoken comfortably, and even hung out casually with non-Jewish men on a regular basis. They would not touch these men, that much is true. But they don't hold themselves apart. In law school, one of our (coed) study group members was an unmarried Satmar woman. We all had serious discussion, and joked around on break, and I never saw her be even slightly uncomfortable with the men. Also, she was in law school, as were a number of other Hassidic men and women (I went to Brooklyn Law.) My favorite professor, Aaron Twerski, is Hassidic. One woman, Naomi, was in labor with her 5th or 6th child during the NY bar exam, she left the exam, took the subway from the Javits Center to a hospital in Brooklyn, and 2 hours later had the baby and she PASSED (total bad ass!) My point here is that Vincent's family was Yeshivish, a less restrictive form of orthodoxy than that practiced by the Hassids (she says this herself in the book) but the behaviors she describes as getting her kicked out of the fold would have been acceptable for a Hassidic woman. The story doesn't ring true, and at very least is missing a lot of valuable information.

I don't question that Vincent was traumatized by her upbringing, and I am happy for her that she found what sounds like a very good life, but I think maybe her sense of betrayal rendered her unable to maintain any sense of objectivity, which is necessary to tell a story, even a memoir.… (altro)